Fall is officially here in Chicago---the leaves are turning and the days are getting noticeably shorter and cooler---so this seems like an extra fitting time of year to write about Breyer nightlights. I do have another post or two about Breyer lamps in the works, but I need to photograph a few of the oddballs in our collection when I visit my parents in December before I can wrap that subject up. In the meantime, I will tackle a few other topics, and nightlights feels like the next logical choice.
Breyer nightlights are an intriguing mystery. We don't know who made them, and while a variety of models were used for them, they all seem to have a consistent style to them. The vast majority of night lights were created using vintage glossy models from the 1950s and 1960s. (There are a handful of matte models from the later 1960s as well, but they seem to be less common.) Most nightlights have a hole low on the barrel where the nightlight bulb can be replaced, and the switch is usually in the shoulder. Western Horse nightlights are the exception---most of them have the hole on their back cleverly hidden under the saddle and the switch along the top of the neck. Some nightlights are freestanding and some are attached to oval wood bases.
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| This glossy bay Family Arabian Mare is a typical freestanding example. |
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| A Western Horse nightlight showing the alternate placement of the switch and hole (under the saddle) |
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| A matte grey Donkey nightlight |
Other early nightlights include a number of animal molds such as the Boxer, Walking Hereford, and Brahma. Some of the Western Horse nightlights were probably made in the mid to late 1950s as well.
Breyer nightlights tend to be somewhat hard to find, and some of them are definitely much more rare than others. For example, Western Horse nightlights seem to have been big sellers, and they can be found on eBay fairly regularly. In comparison, Proud Arabian Mare nightlights are quite scarce and rarely come up for sale.
Interestingly, some nightlights on bases are paired with clocks. These are almost always Fighting Stallions, sometimes even pairs of Fighting Stallions, one on either side of a clock. I've seen glossy palomino, alabaster, charcoal, and appaloosa examples. As you can see in the pictures below, the horses have been found facing left or right. The bases are usually oval, but our appaloosa has a rounded rectangular base. The clock movements were made by United, a division of the United Metal Goods Company of Brooklyn, New York, but they were likely ordered by whoever made the nightlight and base.
As delightful as these nightlights would be to use on a regular basis, especially as mood lighting in a cozy model horse room for example, they are unfortunately highly susceptible to damage. The heat given off by the original bulbs is enough to discolor and crack the plastic of the model, so it's best to replace them with something that doesn't get hot if you really feel the need to use the nightlight. (An LED perhaps? Definitely ask an expert first though because I am not one).
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| I bought this poor guy already damaged (for science) |
So that said, who did make the Breyer nightlights? Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer. Given the consistency of the pieces and their relative abundance, I have to think they were the product of a company rather than just a kitchen table industry. I have heard speculation over the years that Dunning Industries, the lamp maker, might have made them, but we know now that the nightlights predate the existence of Dunning by a number of years. Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, no nightlights have been found with any sort of sticker, hang tag, or other identifying mark. A number of companies made decorative nightlights and/or TV lamps in the 1950s and 1960s using plastic and ceramic items. Hartland for example produced nightlights as part of their religious figurines line, so it was a popular idea. (There are Hartland horse nightlights as well, but that's a subject for another post.)
One Breyer nightlight has been found with an original box however...but as you can see, said box is an original Breyer Western Horse mailer box.
My mom, sister, and I acquired this very cool nightlight and box several years ago, and there are a few things of note about it. The first is the white sticker on the box that says "WHITE 57-2993" indicating the color of the model in the box. The number, though hand-written, is formatted in the style we see in holiday catalogs at the time which may or may not be significant. The other interesting thing is the little slip of blue paper that was tucked inside the box. It gives instructions on how to change the light bulb and the address of the retailer that apparently sold the nightlight, the Miller Paint and Cabinet Shop of York, Nebraska.
George Miller opened his store in January 1959 after expanding a cabinet and woodworking business he'd been running from his home for a number of years. It originally sold wallpaper, paint, glass, and cabinet hardware [1]. But by the following year, the store advertised the best selection of toys and hobby supplies as well [2]. Within a few years, their inventory included supplies for stamp and coin collectors, HO trains, Barbies, paint-by-number and mosaic tile kits, model boats and airplanes, and more [3]. By the mid-1960s, the store name had changed to Miller's Paint and Hobby Shop, and based on their advertising in the local York newspaper, it would seem that the toy and hobby part of the business had surpassed the paint, wallpaper, and cabinetry side of things.
In 1975, George retired and sold the business. It became Wagner's Decorating and Hobby Shop, and while it eventually moved to a new location in York, it was still operating on a reduced scale as of August 2026. George went back to running a small cabinet framing shop from his home, and a 1988 newspaper article shows that he also made model horse sized vehicles (a time-honored Midwestern hobby). There is however no mention of horse night lights in any of the articles I found about him.
Oddly enough, there is yet another York, Nebraska, connection to night lights. The only advertising that has ever turned up for night lights that I'm aware of is an ad from the February 1961 issue of the Arab Horse Journal.
Clarence W. (Red) Burch was an active equestrian and horse breeder in the 1960s and 1970s, and he was regularly mentioned in newspapers of the time. In 1962, he moved his farm to nearby Grand Island, Nebraska, and ten years later, he had moved operations once again to McCool Junction, Nebraska. He bred Arabians and Quarter Horses and regularly helped host and organize horse shows in the area. By the early 1970s, he had started a side business making rosettes for horse shows [4]. A lengthy article in the local newspaper in May of 1972 explained the rosette making process and Red's business ventures rather thoroughly, but there was no mention of nightlights. By 1985, Red's ribbon business had expanded to include trophies as well, but they were of the generic pre-molded type available in any trophy shop of that time [5].
So where does that leave us? I'm honestly not sure. George Miller presumably had the know-how and materials to make the nightlights, but they are never once mentioned in any of the local newspaper articles or ads about him or his store. Nor is anything having to do with electrical wiring mentioned in relation to his business. Red Burch and his various equestrian endeavors received even more coverage in the papers, but likewise, he was never mentioned in conjunction with making the nightlights nor doing electrical work. (That said, the wiring in Breyer nightlights is very simple, so one would not need a great deal of expertise. I'm sure it was covered in issues of Popular Mechanics at that time more than once.) It is certainly possible that George or Red made the nightlights over the course of what was apparently a 10+ year span. They may even have collaborated. York is a small town, even more so 60 years ago, and I can't imagine that they didn't know one another. It is also equally possible that both men simply ordered nightlights from whatever company was making them.
The person who originally bought our Western Horse nightlight in the box filled out the "to" and "from" address fields on the back of the box. Carol Sue Scott of Syracuse, Indiana, sent it to "her hon" (her words) Eugene Carroll of Urbana, Indiana. Perhaps it was purchased on a vacation passing through Nebraska? We'll probably never know. (Whatever the case, as best I can tell, it appears that Carol married a Mr. Phipps and avoided becoming Carol Carroll.)
Anyway, when we first bought our nightlight with the original box, I wondered if perhaps Breyer had done the nightlight installations in the models. It would be the work of just a few minutes to drill the holes and insert the wiring and switch, and they had done somewhat similar work in the mid-1950s installing music boxes into Fury Prancers for Sears. This is all well and good for free-standing models that will still fit in their original Breyer mailer boxes, but the nightlights on bases, especially those combined with clocks, presumably throw a wrench in the works. And once again, no primary source material from Breyer has ever been found. So until someone unearths conclusive proof as to who made the nightlights, we'll just have to remain in the dark on this particular mystery.
(No, I am not apologizing for that terrible pun.)
There is another type of Breyer nightlight I have seen a few examples of that appears to be the work of an unknown but separate maker. Like the nightlights shown above, these are also consistent in construction. They feature a red roan Running Mare and Lying Down Foal or a buckskin Quarter Horse Gelding and Lying Down Foal, both mounted on a rectangular base. Both models, adults and foals, are lit. The adults have a hole cut in the back of the barrel for the distinctive lightbulb hardware and the switch is in the cord. The foals lift off the base to reveal a light that fits through a hole in their undersides. I did not think to check if the red roan models on our nightlight have USA stamps or not, but they can only date to the late 1960s or early 1970s. (I'll update this when I do have a chance to check.)
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| Note the distinctive hardware that holds the bulb in place. |
While the maker of the original nightlights remains a mystery, Breyer did create a lovely homage to those pieces for the Vintage Club in 2024. According to Breyer's sales pitch for the model, Kirk, the Geronimo mold in glossy dapple grey, "features an internal LED light and removable cord so he can be displayed on a shelf or in your home as a functional lighting fixture!" He's a fitting addition to the line and the company's history.
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| Photo by Breyer |
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Sources:
1) "Miller Paint Shop Opened." York News Times, January 29, 1959, pg. 1
2) York News Times, April 12, 1960, pg. 10
3) York News Times, April 7, 1964, pg. 6
4) Jim Cunningham, "Red Could Easily Be A Double Winner," York News Times, May 31, 1972, pg. 1
5) John Ortmann, "Spare Time A Sparse Commodity Since Retiring Into Ribbon Business," York News Times, September 9, 1985, pg. 1
